Living
by knighted lioness
Summary: One by one they fell, until no one was left. His heart was broken. She fixed it. But then he lost her too and nothing could ever be the same. Five years later though, Harry Potter's broken heart is healed by those he couldn't face...R/R DH noncompliant


AN: Yea so I've been having the urge to try and write something again since it's been AGES. But unfortunately that something is still not KoS…I really don't know what to do about that…Anyways, I honestly have no idea what this was supposed to be about or where it was going, so please tell me what you think! Review guys!!

Living

Tonks and Remus went last, ironically enough. They clung to each other throughout the war, doggedly determined to survive. They knew they had to, because the Order couldn't afford to lose them. And neither could Teddy. Especially not little Teddy.

Harry remembered, after everything was over, after his life's goal was complete and he was left alone and useless and drained. He remembered nights when, in the midst of violence and fear and hatred, he'd had moments of joy. He pictured himself with Ron and Hermione, sitting and laughing and watching Tonks and Remus fuss over Teddy, who was in Harry's opinion, the cutest thing he'd ever seen. He'd never been near a baby before.

It was Teddy who gave him the strength to go on when he felt tired of everything, tired of the war, and the pedestal he'd been placed on and the things he saw and the pain he felt. Peering over the bars of Teddy's crib he marveled at tiny fingers and toes and little gurgling noises that sometimes grew into screaming fits loud enough to make Harry imagine Seamus jumping around looking for Banshees. When Teddy cried, Ron winced and Hermione commiserated politely with Tonks about the stress of baby care, all the while resisting the urge to find the earmuffs they'd used at Hogwarts while planting Mandrakes.

Harry never winced or made excuses to leave. He grinned and bore the noise with much less reluctance than he bore any of the other trials that life threw at him. He liked it when Teddy cried. It meant he was alive, that Harry was alive, that _someone_ still had energy to waste on the world in the middle of that gods-cursed war.

And as the war progressed and the others began to feel the same weary ache of responsibility and despair that Harry had felt for so long, they began to enjoy the fresh and unafraid sound of babies too. So they got some.

Hermione and Ron. Bill and Fleur. Neville and Luna. One by one the women fell pregnant, and everyone rejoiced, even though they knew that in five months or so they'd be losing three of their most capable fighters. After all, who knew if any of them would be alive in five months anyway? At least they could look forward to babies, could place hands on swelling bellies and feel _life_ pulse back at them. It reminded them of what they were fighting for, and even though Harry knew that with the loss of Hermione and Fleur and Luna he would have to do even more on his own, he was glad.

But war does not stop for pregnant ladies. War is not honorable or chivalrous or respectful of human life, because if wars cared about who dies then people wouldn't wage them.

Hermione gave birth and cried tears of joy. A week later she cried again when Ron came home in the arms of the twins, his eyes glazed and empty in a way that they had never been before, not even during all those History of Magic classes. A week after that she got out of her childbirth bed and sought vengeance. She didn't come back.

The other Weasley baby never saw light. Bill and Fleur went down together.

Harry broke. He wouldn't speak, wouldn't eat, couldn't see past the redness of his waterlogged eyes. For a while the war paused. The killing didn't stop, Voldemort continued his takeover, but the war was paused nonetheless. There is no war if one side stops fighting back. The Order devoted their time instead to healing Harry.

They hugged him, brought him food, whispered softly to him, talked to him, pleaded, cajoled, begged him to live, to snap out of it. Nothing worked, and finally the adults all turned to those they thought knew him best. Neville and Luna sighed in relief that they were finally being asked for advice. They said nothing. Instead, they sent Ginny to him.

Ginny brought him out of his stupor, enough to look at her with something more than mute incomprehension. Harry came back out of himself, and saw Ginny, smiling down at him. He let her pull him up and walked after her. She led him into a brightly painted room and he blinked. It was Teddy's room. And parentless Rose Weasley's now too.

It was the babies that healed him again. They smiled and gurgled away and Teddy was old enough now that Harry saw him walk for the first time, and knew magic again at the sight. Tonks and Remus watched from the doorway and sighed in relief as their unofficial godson plunged happily into his duties as a godfather.

He emerged once more, determined to finish things so that he could go back to playing with Teddy and Rose and Ginny, who stayed with him always. But going back to war means people start dying again.

Luna gave birth on her own in a small cottage hidden in Scotland. Neville was away on a mission with the Order. She lay alone and exhausted in bed with her baby Alice, and when the death eaters found her, she was helpless against them. Neville came home to find the woman who'd murdered his parents standing above the body of his wife with her wand pointing at his newborn baby. He did what anyone might have done. He went mad.

When Harry called on the Longbottoms by floo to invite them to dinner at Grimmauld Place, he saw immediately what had happened and wept that Neville had lost his life killing the woman who'd taken everything from him. Alice joined Rose and Teddy in the nursery.

Tonks and Remus. They went last. Teddy's nursery in which Rose and Alice had stayed because they had nowhere else was complete. It was in every way an orphan's nursery now.

One day, when the sky was foggy and dreary, as if the whole world was sick of fighting, Harry died and killed Voldemort.

When he awoke, he lay in a hospital bed at Hogwarts, and the sunlight streamed down from a window, falling in golden sparkles of congratulation on his face. He lay still and at peace, eyes closed, imagining a future where he and Ginny spent their days with laughing, screaming adopted babies and their nights alone with each other.

He was brought out of his daydreams by the real sound of crying, but it was not the kind he liked to listen to. Turning his head to the side, he saw Ginny in the bed next to his, with Mrs. Weasley crying over it.

He knew then that he would never have what he dreamed of. In his heart, he felt with utter certainty that he was cursed to never be happy again. Harry Potter's battered heart broke a second time. No one was left to help him heal it.

Mrs. Weasley took over caring for her grandchild and for Alice and Teddy. She thought about offering them to Harry, knowing how they had helped him once before, but he lay listlessly in bed and would not leave. He didn't want to see them anymore. They were no longer symbols of life but of death, of people and dreams that he'd lost. She did not resent him for it. Instead, she cried because she had no illusions left. She knew perfectly well that she'd lost yet another son to that abominable war.

Eventually, Harry got out of bed. He wasn't healed. He would never be healed. In truth he'd left because he knew he wasn't allowed to die in that bed, that he couldn't just kill himself because it wouldn't be fair for him to die when they'd died to let him live. But lying in bed and knowing that you were going to keep on living and thinking and thinking incessantly about them was a fate too cruel to bear.

He got out of the bed because he was breaking even more when lying in it.

He got a job. He became an Auror. Once, back when he was still happy, he'd fantasized about being a Quidditch player. Now he didn't want to feel that temporary rush of joy ever again, because he knew all too well the pain of coming back down to earth. He didn't need to leave the ground to feel that pain in his soul constantly. As long as he was an Auror at least he had an outlet for his misery and a group of co-workers who understood at least a little bit. Enough to leave him alone anyways.

Eventually, his life seemed almost normal, it hid his emptiness from normal eyes. Which was good enough, since there pretty much wasn't anyone left who knew him well enough to see past the façade he'd created. Sometimes it almost fooled him too.

It took him five years to summon up the courage to visit at the rebuilt Burrow. He didn't announce his visit ahead of time, just took the long way around and apparated to Ottery St. Catchpole before strolling down the path to the Weasley house.

He stood hesitantly at the gate for a time, listening to happy shouts and screams of laughter that made his heart ache worse than it had in a while. But he forced himself to undo the catch and walk to the door and knock. Mrs. Weasley answered, looking older and sadder, but with a smile on her face left over from whatever had been going on inside.

Her eyes grew wide when she saw Harry, still messy-haired and shy but aged by time and grief. She had to lean on the doorframe to support herself, but vigorously waved him in with her hand before throwing herself at him and enveloping him in her famous hug.

"Arthur!! George! Oh boys, come and see, come and see!!"

Harry stood awkwardly in her warm embrace, his heart clenching and aching terribly as Mrs. Weasley began to soak his shirt with tears. Mr. Weasely and George, each carrying a little girl on their shoulders, walked into the room with a young blue-haired boy trotting eagerly between them.

They saw Harry and stared dumbfounded. He shifted nervously under their gaze, but kept his own stare fixed on the children before him, flickering between them repeatedly. They were so _different_, so grown up. Teddy with his blue hair, obviously a gift from his mother, and the grey eyes of his father. Seven already. And Harry hadn't seen any of it except those first few months. He'd hardly seen the other two at _all_.

George broke into a grin when the blonde girl on his shoulders banged her small fist on his head and said, "Unnncle Geeoooorge, who's that!?"

He craned his neck to glance up at her. "That, you shrimpy devil, is your godfather Harry."

All three children froze in the middle of their hyperactive play. They stared at Harry with bright eyes.

"Uncle Harry…" The auburn haired girl on Mr. Weasley's shoulders whispered. Both men set their respective children down on the floor, and where all three younsters stayed still for a moment. Harry blushed, not sure whether their reaction was good or bad. Mrs. Weasley, meanwhile, continued to soak his shirt, her head buried on his shoulder.

Another moment of waiting passed, and suddenly, as if broken from a spell, the little blonde girl, whom Harry knew could only be Alice, shrieked. "It's Uncle Harry! It's Uncle Harry!!" and raced forwards to hug him around his knees. The two others followed immediately, each releasing their own cry as well.

Mrs. Weasley finally let go of him, and the three little ones, still clinging to his legs, ushered him into the dining room, the men following. Mrs. Weasley immediately put on her apron, wiped her eyes, and began cooking furiously. Arthur and George sat there smiling softly at the sight of the young man they loved covered by children they'd raised to adore him.

Harry, bemused as ever but feeling strangely close to happy, sat with Rose and Teddy on his lap. Alice stood on the back of his chair, leaning over his shoulder into his face.

"Uncle Harry, Uncle Harry!" They chanted and his heart swelled a little bit at their vibrancy, their exuberant affection. He hadn't felt like this in so long that he almost didn't recognize the smile that began to twist on his lips for the first time in years.

"Uncle Harry, tell me about my parents!" Alice's cry rang out, and the adults froze. Mrs. Weasley stopped frying her pork chops and turned to look, holding her breath and waiting for an outburst.

Even the children were quiet, the mood somehow infecting them. Harry swallowed hard and felt his eyes gain a familiar sting. But he didn't lose himself in misery. He looked down at Alice's face, with Luna's blonde-silver hair and Neville's freckles on her nose and hope shining in her brown eyes. He gave her a watery smile. Not as bright as the last one but still there.

"Alright." His voice was raspy—he hadn't used it often in recent years. A collective sigh of relief went around the room from the adults. The children unfroze and came to life once more. Harry found Rose and Teddy in his face.

"Tell me about mine next!"

"And then mine!"

"Well," Harry said quietly. "The first time I met Alice's mom, she was reading her newspaper upside down…"

And Harry Potter's cracked heart began to beat again.


End file.
